Wednesday, August 24, 2011

At the Virginia Tech Kids' Tech University Jan. 30, 2011 KTU event, Dr. Reinhard Laubenbacher engaged the students in a discussion on “Patterns are Everywhere! How and Why?”.After this session children were escorted by their parents to have lunch and then to the hands-on portion of the event where the children participated in two activities. During one activity, "Dancing with the Stars: what's math got to do with it?",with co-instructor Prof. Cara Rawlings, Theater Arts Department children arranged dance movements in mathematical patterns in order to choreograph dance moves. See here for a Youtube video of the event! During the second hands-on activity children used mathematics principles to predict patterns, interact with the mathematics formulas and create beautiful fractals. These activities are the basis of the Kids' Tech University, Virtual World of Patterns website where children can make fractals, ask questions to Dr. Laubenbacher and play the "Game of Life" invented by John Conway, a Cambridge mathematician.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

We created an KTU exhibitor based video on the April 9, 2011, Kids' Tech Universityprogram. Check it out!! At this event, Dr. Helena Carvalho engaged the students in a discussion on “Why do we want to touch everything with our fingertips? And more ‘why’ questions about how our bodies communicate with the world.” See this KTU website for a list of the hands-on exhibitors that participated in the event that day.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

In July Virginia Bioinformatics Institute hosted "Our Green Future" high school internship funded through the NSF Award Number IOS-0922747. The internship exposed students to the exciting fields of research in biology, plant pathology, the environment, climate and bioinformatics. This week-long program consisted of serval research activity labs, research-related tours and a discussion/lecture series by undergraduate students, graduate students and Virginia Tech faculty.

There will be another high school internship program in 2012; see the website around March 2012 for more information!

Monday, August 1, 2011

VBI welcomes a Higher Achievement visit this week! These high schools students are traveling from Washington, DC to come to Virginia Tech and participate in a variety of activities and tours around campus. During their time at VBI the students will extract DNA from a strawberry (see why we do this activity- here!) and take a tour of the facility.

For more information on how to get connected with Virginia Tech Faculty, researchers and students, visit the KTU Faculty Network site!